Boulder ski-tune shops gear up for season

Tuning, waxing business picking up as ski season draws near

Evan Spence works on a pair of skis at REI in Boulder, which sees about 1,110 skis and boards for tuning every winter.
(MARK LEFFINGWELL)

E van Spence holds a miniature red iron in his right hand and a slab of light blue wax in his left.

He slowly drips the wax across an upturned ski resting on his workbench at REI Boulder.

"I'd say about one drop per square inch," Spence says, adding that it's more of an art than a science as he smoothes the wax across the flat plane of the ski.

Spence, 29, has been tuning and waxing skis since he was 19. Each season, many of the 1,100 skis and snowboards that come into REI Boulder will cross Spence's work bench.

Each November, ski shops in Boulder and the surrounding areas fill with anxious skiers and snowboarders raring to get out on the few open slopes. With Arapahoe Basin, Loveland, Copper, Winter Park and Wolf Creek already open, and Vail and Eldora set to open Friday, business is starting to pick up at local ski shops.

Spence grew up in Clear Creek County, where he started working as a rental technician after high school. He's moved around to different ski-related positions, while keeping a focus on ski tuning and waxing.

Most of Spence's tuning knowledge has come from years of watching and talking with other technicians, and trial and error on his own skis. The art of tuning is a hand-me-down trade, he said.

"You have to show a mechanical inclination," Spence said. "You have to be really meticulous."

Though it can be nerve racking drilling into $1,000-plus skis or boards, the job has its perks. Spence knows exactly how to make his own skis fly, and he'll often gets a batch of cookies from happy clients.

Advertisement

Some of the strangest -- and best -- gifts that Neptune Mountaineering ski service manager Zach Holtzman has received have ranged from burritos to a French press coffee maker.

Holtzman began learning the trade from his aunt when he was 10, he said. He started at Neptune four years ago after stints at ski shops in Leadville and Lake Tahoe.

Neptune sees anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 skis and boards each season, Holtzman said. But since the first snow in October, Holtzman said the shop has already had around 20 pairs of skis to tune each weekend.

"It seems like people are eager this year," he said, adding that people are anxious for a good snow year after last season's dismal precipitation.

Christy Sports in Boulder sees anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 pairs of skis or boards each season, depending on snowfall, said Boulder manager Dennis Meeker. Even though the techs see a lot of skis and boards, he said, they'll remember what they worked on -- even if they don't remember the skier or rider -- when they see those skis again later in the season.

He said ski techs are often snow-sports enthusiasts with a penchant for working with their hands. Though it isn't the most lucrative position, Meeker said, the job market for ski techs is competitive.

"It's not the most profitable business and not the most luxurious and not the highest paid, but it is a self-rewarding position," said Meeker, who learned to tune and wax skis 25 years ago.

Peter Boyer founded Alpine Base and Edge in 2005 as a no-frills ski tuning and merchandise shop -- nothing but skis, poles, boots and bindings, he said. Boyer learned ski tuning in 1977 as an 18-year-old at a shop in Vail.

MacIntyre feels Colorado is capable of making run at bowl gameCU BUFFS FALL CAMPWhen: 29 practices beginning Wednesday morning 8:30-11 a.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday practices are open to the media and public next week. Full Story

It didn't take long for Denver music observers to notice Plume Varia. Husband and wife Shon and Cherie Cobbs formed the band only two years ago, but after about a year they started finding themselves on best-of lists and playing the scene's top venues. Full Story